Concrete trowel-polisher machine

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is a concrete floor trowel machine of multiple blades with added floor polishing jacket or attachment. It saves expense and time associated with the use of a trowel and a polisher in consecutive order, often a day apart. Furthermore, disclosed is a blade replacement polisher disk with metallic hook-and-loop attached steel wool polisher puck, which is the loop component of that means of attachment. Means of slurry feed and suction removal to said puck is also disclosed, whereas said puck may rotate in planetary fashion. Said pucks may be attached to blades however. Safety cage and slurry splash cover supplement the machine. Removable caster legs are added to ease moving around the machine before and after normal use.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/854,424 of Priority Date Apr. 24, 2013 and Ser. No. 61/960,457 of Priority Date Sep. 19, 2013.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to walk-behind or sit-on wet concrete floor trowel machines. Also, to walk-behind or sit-on dry concrete floor polishing machines. More specifically, to trowel-to-polisher conversion machines of slurry polishing by soft means.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The invention aims to save on time and cost of machinery used for concrete floor troweling and consecutive polishing, for which works, in state-of-art practice, at least two different machines are used.

Notably, a trowel machine, with rotary blades and a polisher, with polishing disc. For small jobs, these are configured as walk-behind machines, and for larger ones, as sit-on-machines. Some sit-on polishers are self-driving and some polisher heads comprise multiple disks of different grit or function, such as wiping, wetting, “waxing” with plastic melt to seal, and more.

These two machines have similar or identical construction, power-need and rotational-speed and shortly follow each other (say within a day or so) on a new construction site. By itself, each one is expensive and requires storage space. Their combination is proposed here, using polishing head attachment over the trowel blades or blade replacement with polishing blades. Therefore, it is the object of this invention to resolve the conflicting functional means of troweling and polishing embodied in the same machine.

Furthermore, it is another object of the invention is to provide for soft means polishing with slurry, especially for trowel-to-polisher conversion machines and processes, alas not limited to such conversion machines.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The above problems and others are at least partially solved and the above objects and others realized in a process, which according to the teachings of this invention, uses a concrete floor trowel machine of at least two blades for polishing concrete floors, employing polishing jackets over the trowel blades or replacing said troweling blades with polishing blades or attachments. Additional problems are solved, with trowel blade replacement with polisher disc, which preferably has steel cloth pucks, with or without slurry feed holes. Said cloth may hold dry polishing powder and may comprise the loop part of a hook-and loop (Velcro) attachment, which however is made of stainless steel or other suitable metal. Trowel blade replacement with planetary polisher head is also proposed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Referring to the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a STATE-OF-ART drawing, illustrating a walk-behind concrete polishing power-trowel machine with four trowel blades.

FIG. 2 illustrates a trowel-blade jacket in perspective view, as a preferred embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates, in perspective view, a trowel-blade polishing-head attachment, as another preferred embodiment.

FIG. 4 illustrates, in isometric view from under, a trowel-to-polisher conversion disc with steel cloth pucks.

FIG. 5 illustrates the same from above.

FIG. 6 illustrates, in isometric view from under, its application in a conversion machine, without slurry catcher skirt.

FIG. 7 illustrates the same with such skirt, from under.

FIG. 8 illustrates the same from above.

FIG. 9 illustrates the same from above with skirt integrated with splash dome.

FIG. 10 illustrates the same from under with safety cage.

FIG. 11 illustrates the same without cage.

FIG. 12 illustrates the same with caster legs.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Attention is now turned to FIG. 1, which illustrates a STATE-OF-ART walk-behind concrete polishing power-trowel machine, assembly 10, with four trowel blades, as a chosen example for its simplicity and commonality.

Machine 10 has four trowel blades 1, rigidly attached to four spider arms 2, a bumper rim 3, a safety cage 4, a powering engine 5, two handles 6, controls 7, optional stash-away hardware 8 and optional stash away roller 9.

While blades 1 are shown to be short and wide, they can be long and narrow, as they are in most of the modern power trowels. Engine 5 is shown as a gasoline engine. Other engines, including electrical motors are also common however.

The worker walks behind such a machine with the expectation that his footprint will not show off. With proper timing and care, it does not. That is the state of art of concrete floor troweling, alas with much sophisticated machines. Some for instance has four rotary head, each having four trowel blades and the operator sits on the so configured self-propelling machine. Such machines are used for large concrete floor area troweling.

The state of art of the concrete floor polishing is similar, using polisher machines, having rotary disks with polisher heads or pads. For simplicity, such polisher is not illustrated here.

To the skilled in the art, it may be striking the similarity of these two kinds of machines. Even more to the power-trowel operator, who may need to come back the next day with a similar size and speed power-polisher. He would rather switch the power-trowel to polisher mode; say by pulling a polishing jacket over the trowel blades. Such jacket is disclosed next.

Attention is now turned to FIG. 2, which by assembly 20, illustrates a consumable throw-away polisher jacket, as a preferred embodiment of this invention.

Jacket 20 is cut from consumable plastic mat of hard foam, cloth or sponge consistency, which may comprise plastic insert balls melted with diamond powder at some distribution (not shown for clarity). Underside 21 of jacket 20 polishes the concrete floor wet or dry. A mist system may keep floor wetting uniform, while at dry polishing, a vacuum may sweep up the dust. For such means are common in contemporary polishers, their illustration is omitted here.

The leading and trailing edges of jacket 20 are not distinguished, for these may be interchanged, even in between two polishing steps or passes. Reinforced holes 22 allow for trowel blade attachment, say bay rubber straps (not shown either).

Note that jacket 20 is to be of sufficient but not excessive compressibility and flexibility. It shall be able to hold water, when soaked and its plastic inserts shall be able to melt by friction and seal the pores. The materials shall be the same as used in disc shape on common floor polishers. However, not all blades of a four-blade machine need to have the same composition. For instance, one may be the wetting jacket, the other one, the grit polisher; the next one is the melt sealer, and the last one, the wiper.

Trowel blades are made of sheet metal, including stainless steel. They themselves are flexible enough to attach rigid plastic polisher blocks to function as polisher disks. Such configuration, as another preferred embodiment of this invention is illustrated next.

Attention is now turned to FIG. 3, in which, a schematic 3-D view of another preferred embodiment of this invention is illustrated by trowel-head-attachment 30. Head 30 comprises of attachment plate 31, edge-stems 32 One at the leading and one at the trailing edges), hold-down lips 33 (one for each stem), holes for attachment 34 (may be threaded for screws), and a multiplicity of polisher blocks 35 through 38, integrated with or attached to plate 31.

Head 30 is shown as being short, for it only needed at the trowel tips, where blocks 35-38 attain the highest speed, and where the trowel is the most flexible.

It shall be obvious to the skilled in the art that blocks 35-38 may be staggered in plane and may have different function, surface feature and composition thereof.

For instance, if blocks 35 are near to the leading edge, hitting first the floor, their job may be hard grit material removal. Behind these, block 36, may have the same function but with smaller grits for smoothing. Block 37 may be the melting resin type with fine diamond powder, while block 38 with magnetized powder or grit.

Just like polisher head block have various surface features, materials and compositions, block 35-38 may have the same variety for the same reason. According to the needs, pads and jackets (say for buffing) may be secured to adjacent blades of the same trowel machine.

In any case, it shall be obvious by now, that trowel jackets and attachments constructed according to the teachings of this invention, can save considerable expenses and time in construction and maintenance jobs. At least as much as employing one machine, instead of two, can save.

Attention is now turned to FIG. 4, which by assembly 40, in isometric view from under, trowel-to-polisher conversion disc 41 with four narrow slots 42, four wide slots 43, one hub attachment hole 44A and eight steel or rock cloth pucks 45, with eight slurry feed hole 46A. FIG. 5 illustrates similarly assembly 40 from above; with additional hub key 44B and slurry feed holes 48B. Pucks 45 are compacted steel wool of stainless fibers, which holds grinding grits, powder and slurry dipped into the corresponding powder or liquid. It may be attached to disk 41 by socket bolting or snap hardware, but most preferably by metallic hook-and-loop rapid attachment, in which the stainless hooks are stud welded onto disk 41, while the random and continuous filaments of puck 45 are the loop component. For wet polishing, chamfered holes 45 may feed the slurry in a manner illustrated further on. Pucks 45 are consumable. Slots 42 and 43 add out-of-plane disc flexibility, to ensure long puck life. Holes 46A in pucks 45 is not a must, for slurry may flow into the steel or rock wool without it. Yet, it is preferable, for greatly facilitating ultra-fine polishing. Each second of holes 46A may be slurry feed holes, while each second one, staggered, slurry suction holes however. It is also preferable that pucks 45 could rotate in planetary motion relative to hole 44A. Each second such planetary puck may rotate in opposite direction. The use of assembly 40 is illustrated next.

Attention is now turned to FIG. 6, which by assembly 50A, illustrates, in isometric view from under, assembly 40 attached to the hub of a power trowel to polisher conversion machine, having engine 52, onboard water tank 53, with slurry nozzles 54 and blade catcher safety cage 51. To retain slurry, skirt 55 is added, as that illustrated in FIG. 7, by assembly 50B. Notice that nozzle 54 passes right above holes 46B. To further clarify this preferred embodiment, assembly 50B is also shown from above in FIG. 8, where chemical tank 56 became visible.

Attention is now turned to FIG. 9, which by assembly 60, illustrates in perspective top view another preferred embodiment of the invention, trowel-polisher 60, machinery 70, and slurry retainer 61, consisting of two integrate parts, skirt 62 and splash cover 63.

FIG. 10 illustrates the same from a lower perspective, which allows to see safety cage 51. Since retainer 61 can be made metallic, it can also serve as safety “cage”. That is illustrated in FIG. 11 by trowel-polisher machine 80.

Attention is finally turned to FIG. 12, which by illustrates machine 90, which is the same as machine 80, however with added removable caster legs 94. Slurry retainer 91 here is made of spun metal. Retainer 91 has skirt 92 and cover 93. Cover 93 may have see-through window (not shown) for monitoring slurry movement while polishing.

The present invention is described above with reference to a preferred embodiment. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that changes and modifications may be made in the described embodiment without departing from the nature and scope of the present invention. For instance, trowel-to-polisher head conversion is intuitive, and thus hereby instructive, in reverse, that is in polisher-to-trowel conversion configuration. Adding a roller leg to facilitate rolling the machine to stash away, if it has not one already, is also considered instructive. Finally, adding swivel arm attachment, as well as polisher head drivers, to a trowel blade, for a more functional polisher conversion, is also considered within the scope and teachings of this invention. Also within the scope of battery powered electrical walk-behind, sit-on and remote-controlled trowel machine conversions.

Various further changes and modifications to the embodiment herein chosen for purposes of illustration will readily occur to those skilled in the art. To the extent that such modifications and variations do not depart from the spirit of the invention, they are intended to be included within the scope thereof. For instance, said steel wool puck may be made of plastic, at least in part, and may be attached to blades, rather than a disc. 

Having fully described the invention in such clear and concise terms as to enable those skilled in the art to understand and practice the same, the invention claimed is:
 1. Concrete floor trowel machine of at least two blades accommodating means of floor polishing.
 2. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises at least one floor polishing blade jacket.
 3. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises at least one floor polishing head attachment with at least one polishing pad.
 4. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises at least one floor polishing head attachment with a multiplicity of polishing pads performing the same task.
 5. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises at least one floor polishing head attachment with a multiplicity of polishing pads, any two of which performing at least two different tasks individually.
 6. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one rock wool polisher puck.
 7. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one volcanic spun wool polisher puck.
 8. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel or rock wool polisher puck made of plastic at least in part.
 9. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel wool polisher puck, having means to accommodate slurry feed.
 10. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel or rock wool polisher puck attached by metallic hook-and-loop means in which said puck is the component loop.
 11. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises blades, having at least one steel or rock wool polisher puck attached by metallic hook-and-loop means in which said puck is the component loop.
 12. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises blades, having at least one steel or rock wool polisher puck attached by metallic hook-and-loop means in which said puck is the component loop, whereas said wool is made of plastic at least in part.
 13. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel or rock wool polisher puck capable to planetary motion and made of plastic at least in part.
 14. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel wool polisher puck capable to planetary motion, and having means to accommodate slurry feed.
 15. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel or rock wool polisher puck capable to planetary motion and made of plastic at least in part, and having means to remove slurry by suction.
 16. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel wool polisher puck capable to planetary motion, and having means to accommodate slurry feed, and having means to remove slurry by suction.
 17. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel or rock wool polisher puck capable to planetary motion and made of plastic at least in part, and having means to remove slurry by suction through said pucks alternating with slurry feed.
 18. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said means comprises a blade replacement polisher disk, having at least one steel wool polisher puck capable to planetary motion, and having means to accommodate slurry feed, and having means to remove slurry by suction through said pucks alternating with slurry feed.
 19. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said blades are covered with safety cage.
 20. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said blades are covered with safety cage with slurry retainer perimeter skirt.
 21. Machine as per claim 1, whereas said blades are covered with safety cage with slurry retainer perimeter skirt and splash guard cover.
 22. Machine as per claim 1, with added removable caster legs. 